The present invention relates to a virtual shop system on a commercial network constituted by cardholders' computers, virtual shop computers, and a card issuing finance company computer, and a virtual shop certification method.
Conventionally, the computers of cardholders as customers, the computers of virtual shops as member shops, and the computer of a card issuing finance company (acquirer/issuer) are arranged on a commercial network (for example the internet). Customers can make business transactions with virtual shops on the commercial network.
In this case, the card issuing finance company is a company which issues cards such as VISA or JCB cards to general customers, and makes a member shop contract with department stores, hotels, and the like to make business transactions. In addition, the virtual shops include department stores such as MITSUKOSHI. However, the virtual shops are not limited to these and may take various forms.
In this case, each virtual shop on the commercial network does not have means for certifying that the shop is a member shop of a specific card issuing finance company.
For example, a given shop is certified as a member shop which allows the use of a specific credit card by using a method of encrypting code information by the RSA encryption method, and allowing the user to check the authenticity of the shop by decrypting the information on the reception side.
When a credit card is used to make a business transaction on a conventional commercial network, the transaction amount in the corresponding virtual shop is given to a settlement institution.
Since there is no means for certifying that a given virtual shop is a member shop which allows the use of a specific credit card, a customer must believe the displayed contents of the virtual shop and make a business transaction. In addition, a card issuing finance company as a settlement institution cannot check business transactions made by false member shops. For this reason, the handling fees for such transactions cannot be collected. Someone can therefore open a virtual shop on a commercial network disguised as a specific member shop and steal private and important information such as a credit card number or make business transactions by illegally using the network of the card issuing finance company.
According to the method of encrypting code information, a computer checks the information, and the receiver of the information (a customer in a virtual shop) is notified of only the check result. That is, shopping is performed differently from the conventional manner of shopping, in which a customer sees a sticker indicating a card logo, which is attached at the entrance of an actual shop, to confirm that the shop is a member shop, and does his/her shopping. For this reason, some customers hesitate to do shopping in virtual shops.
Furthermore, when a customer performs a business transaction with a virtual shop on a conventional commercial network, he/she cannot check the transaction amount notified to the card issuing finance company by the virtual shop. For this reason, the virtual shop may illegally claim payment for the customer.